Stair Update Progress

Hi guys! I thought I’d drop in and show you a little progress in our basement. My husband just received his “special saw” on our doorstep for this project, so hopefully I’ll be back with the finished look very soon, but for now, here’s how far we’ve gotten.

I have a hard time sharing posts like these because they’re not the final reveal and therefore don’t look “perfect”. But since these stairs will take at least another week to complete – I thought I’d give you a little update.

It’s funny, I really do love the stairs now and I’m kind of shocked at how good they look, but I can tell I’m getting used to them already. Why? Because when I looked at the before pictures to add to this post, I kinda felt like throwing up! Seriously! They were so bad! How did we ever live with them that way for so long?!

Ready? Here they are …

Our whole basement had this flooring when we bought the house. We’ve obviously replaced it in part of the basement, but we had the hardest time figuring how to fix the stairs. (By the way, these are old asbestos-containing tiles. We were careful to remove them by hand by prying them up so we didn’t really disturb them much. I know this might not be the route for everyone, so make sure you do your research and remove these tiles carefully – or by a professional – if you have them!)

We had never really thought of bringing our peel and stick flooring from the basement onto the stairs, but when we were at Liz’s house the other day, we saw that they did it and it just totally made sense to us! (She’s full of great ideas!) My husband and I talked about our stairs later and how we could incorporate what they did into the look we’re going for in our own home. After a lot of discussion, we decided to glue the flooring down on the treads and then use thin plywood (same as we’ve used on all our wood plank wall projects) for the risers. Here’s what the stairs looked like before we painted the risers.

Ahhh, so much better already! I want to take a quick moment to point out that the stairs are a little wonky on one side. See how, on the left, there’s a bigger gap between the wall and the stringer? Well, when we went to build that wall last year, we found out that the stairs were not square to the house. Instead of building a wall that wasn’t square to make up for it, we built a wall that was square to the house and then had to fill in the gap. Totally makes sense because why would we want an un-square wall, right? But it looks a little off. Oh well, I don’t think it will be a big deal when all the trim is up.

Anyway, here are the stairs partially painted. I love them already!

Don’t mind the dusty walls!

Like that blue tape? The black mastic (or black magic, as I like to call it!) from the old tiles was still sticking out on the “nose” of the stairs and we kept getting it on our clothes – especially a certain little someone who likes to go down the stairs on her butt! Since we’re not quite ready to finish them yet, we temporarily covered them with painter’s tape to keep our clothes clean!

So what’s left to do? We need to finish the “nose” of the stairs. I’m super excited with what we came up with for this part and can’t wait to share it with you! Also, we need to trim out the stringers and the whole basement for that matter! We also need to stain the railing, paint the half wall cap on the other side, and add a little trim where the walls didn’t match up on that side! Remodels are so fun, aren’t they?!

Comments

Looks wonderful and it will be when you get it done. I bought mine 13 yrs. ago and i finally am finished.I retired and it is paid for but now with help form bloggers like you i will get it decorated just like i want. Thank you for sharing everything with me and i wish you and your family a Happy New.